Obama on the Risks of AI: 'You Just Gotta Have Somebody Close to the Power Cord'

Obama on the Risks of AI: ‘You Just Gotta Have Somebody Close to the Power Cord’

Today, Wired published an extensive interview between President Barack Obama — who edited this month’s issue of the magazine — and Joi Ito, the director of MIT’s Media Lab. In the interview (conducted by Scott Dadich, who edits Wired when the president isn’t), the two men discuss everything from artificial intelligence to computers to their favorite science-fiction movies. (Like Taylor Swift, Obama was a big fan of 2015’s The Martian and he thinks we’re a “reasonably long way away” from living in The Matrix.) At one point in the interview (which you can read in full here), Dadich asks Obama about the potential dangers society faces as AI becomes more and more ingrained in our lives. Specifically, “about AI’s potential to outpace our ability to understand it.” (Read: What happens…